Fans of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy are likely to react strongly to the announcement that Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer has been given the green light to write a sixth book in the series - 16 years after the release of Mostly Harmless.
According to the BBC, the project - entitled And Another Thing..., and …

Pale imitations?

I don't really know why this is happening, but maybe DA's widow is running short of funds?

Whatever the outcome I can't see how Eoin will be able to replicate Douglas's view of the universe. As I get older, I discover that so many of his thoughts turn out to be true or very nearly so. It's clear to me that the universe has vanished and been replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable, possibly several times and especially after a UK general election has been held.

Perhaps Mr Colfer needs some Vogon poetry read to him while he's trying to concentrate on writing....

I'm feeling very very depressed...

and I have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side.

No disrespect for Mr Coifer, but in fifty years reading science fiction I haven't come across a single instance[1] where alternate authors have used the original author's characters and made it work as well as the original. No reason to think it would be any better on t'radio, either...

My word, what are all those 'creatives' in the BBC doing? Aren't we paying them to come up with ideas? Not deja vu...

[1] where authors share a world, under the strict guidelines of the original author, it *sometimes* comes out readable.

How?

People of Earth!

News obviously hasn't reached the publisher that the big DA is in fact dead and not merely out to lunch (missing presumed fed). I know that he had a thing for missing deadlines but really, he is not going to wander back in and put in a good afternoons work he's dead, gone, its really best not to think about it.

I bet that the boardroom at whatever publishing house it is, is full of people trying to decide what colour the new book will be.

I think that DA himself was fed up of the series, looking at the ending of Mostly Harmless he hardly left room for a follow up, having destroyed the Earth and its inhabitants in every concievable dimension throughout history. It's a wonderful cult fiction series and should respectfully remain so forever dredging it up in order to make money from the name is just wrong. Was the film not dire enough? Really? I mean honestly....just......BELGIUM is all I will say.

Aside from that all HHG fans should just pray.....anyone know any good religions?

Why?

Hmm

Considering Mr Adams didn't want to write fourth book, let alone a fifth, I fail to see how Mr Coilfer can justify his enthusiasm. How is he going to recreate the universe to repopulate it with our favourite characters without Arthur waking up to find Patrick Duffy in the shower? Let's milk these suckers for money whilst I crimp one off into Douglas's coffin.

Salmon of Doubt

So is this sixth book going to be entirely clean slate in terms of the existing drafts for a 'potential sixth hitchhikers book, or a dirk gently novel' which were published in Salmon of Doubt, or will it be based around some of the aforementioned partially started work?

Outrage, what Outrage?

I doubt anyone can actually replace Douglas Adams, or imitate his style, any more that you could Terry Pratchett's or any of many other loved authors, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't build on their ideas and world with your own.

I'm personally looking forward to seeing how you follow up on "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish". Perhaps we could even have a new Dirk Gently.

So long as Eoin doesn't try to be Douglas Adams and develops the character with his own style, we could have some good reads.

Um

Doesn't he write kids books? Isn't that a bit like asking JK Rowling to write something original and interesting? To be fair though, mostly harmless wasn't exactly brilliant was it? Exhume Douglas, add a bit of necromancy and get him writing the 3rd Dirk Gently novel, I gotta fever and I need more Thor (or Cowbell).

Wait, what?

But the bird thing... the earth... it was destroyed in all possible timelines. I remember, the last book ruined the series, killing of the girl from book 4 in the opening sentence (almost) and then categorically blowing up the earth, rendering the whole series utterly pointless.

Well, not to put TOO fine a point on it...

Vol 5 was pretty ropey, IMO, and it's entirely possible that Colfer'll make a decent fist of it. Of course it's also possible that as soon as he types the first word, he'll suffer a total existence failure, that the vacuum created by the improbability will cause the solar system to compress to the size of a shaddock, and that the sun will be eaten by a small iguana. Still, worse things happen at sea, eh? Drink up...

Obviously

Nooooo.....

Let him write one in the Hitchhiker universe, like all of the other knock-off fantasy books, but leave the original storyline and characters be. Given Adams' untimely demise, the ending of Mostly Harmless is a perfect conclusion to the series.

I'd much prefer...

...someone to finish the Dirk Gently novel that we read a bit of in The Salmon of Doubt.

H2G2 is complete and doesn't require anymore input - all of the loose ends have been tied up: "Options collapsed, possibilities folded into each other, and the whole at last resolved itself out of existence."

Couldn't resist, uh?

Is nothing sacred?

Russell the Crowe to play Bill Hicks. Some bloke to write another Hitchhiker book. It some bird related plot to take over the things we love. First a Crow now some foul Fowl thing. I'll be pulling their dead bodies out of the wire mesh on the landdrover windscreen before this is over I know I will. Is that the sound of bombs or of jets crashing?

Space Wizards School

I'm so scared

Adams did want to do another

Adams had planned on doing a 6th H2G2 book as 'Mostly Harmless' was somewhat influenced by a relationship going titsup, and he wanted to make it up to the fans by having a less depressing end to the trilogy.

After all, Arthur Dent had a hard enough fictional life, without his creator taking out his frustrations upon him too.

interesting

Possible Scenario

How about Arthur is re-incarnated as the first Agrajag? Over the lifetimes, his name morphs from Arthur to Agrajag, and irony of irony, he's killing/killed / will kill (I hate future-past-present tenses when time isn't linear!) himself each time!